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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27692531">Zero Reverse</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistressminako/pseuds/mistressminako'>mistressminako</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dismemberment, Gen, Grief/Mourning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:41:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,689</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27692531</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistressminako/pseuds/mistressminako</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The days and weeks after Zero Reverse are difficult. He will survive.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Zero Reverse</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was storming again.</p><p>Rain pounded mercilessly against the roof and walls of the shelter he'd made for himself. A burned out, partially-collapsed shell of a small building he'd reinforced over time with salvaged plywood and metal sheeting. Winter was quickly approaching. Everyone's first winter here, devoid of modern infrastructure. It was cold. Frost covered the corners of his shelter furthest from the small fire currently cooking a small pot of rice. Rice that had been given to him as payment for helping to staple another shack together, for a woman and her son. The boy's father had died working on the bridge out of the coastal area, Barbaric After Destruction as the locals started calling it. He knew what it was like to be alone out here. He did his best to give a hand to the people around him. When he worked he didn't have to think about all the blood on his hands.</p><p>He curled up under his tattered blankets. He'd been trapped here in BAD after the explosion with only the clothes on his back and the promise he'd made on that day. He'd slunk into the lobby of a ruined hotel and tended to his injuries before looting a storeroom. His survival skills came from watching television on those odd nights. He couldn't even say he'd ever been camping. There was always too much work to be done and neither of them had ever felt a pull to the primitive lifestyle. He shivered as a gust of wind tore through the cracks in his shelter.</p><p>He'd traded his shirt and tie and pressed slacks for more proletarian attire. He kept the old lab coat stashed away for nights like this, the lab coat he'd been wearing that day by accident because he'd taken to quietly wearing his brother's slightly larger lab coat during his absence. Here by himself it was okay to huddle under the thin material and wish for change. The fire cast strange patterns on the wall and he thought sometimes of the stories Rutger used to tell. How he'd always make a show out of some scary tale by raking his hand across a nearby wall. That hand...</p><p>He turned away from the fire. Stashed in a dark corner of his shack was the legacy Rutger had bestowed on him. He kept the jar carefully covered with a thick blanket to protect it from the elements and from curious eyes. Here in the dead of night when he was alone, it was safe to strip away the protective cover. His hands shook as he unwrapped it, excitement and fear in equal parts driving him to uncover the macabre relic. The wind leaked through as he gazed at Rutger's perfectly preserved arm. It shone like a lamp in the darkness, casting strange patterns over the walls. With great care, he lifted the jar from it's dark hiding place and he cradled it as he slid back to the pile of thin blankets and threadbare pillow he called his bed.</p><p>Rain was coming through the cracks in his shelter now, sliding down the inner walls in thin rivers that were born and died in an instant and pooling on the ground to soak the edges of his blankets. He laid down there in a pitiful state, covered by the slightly oversized lab coat and curled around the jar. This was his promise, his mission, only he had survived the epicenter of Zero Reverse for the sole purpose of gathering the Signers. Find them all and bring them back to MIDS in order to save Rutger from the darkness. He pressed his forehead to the top of the jar and tightened his grip. If he concentrated, he could remember the feel of this hand. Could remember the steady voice, gently explaining the mistake in his calculation-</p><p>A harsh buzzing sound disturbed him from his reverie. The old alarm clock he'd set for his rice was screaming its completion. He hugged the jar to his chest again, briefly, before he returned it to its hiding place. Sluggishly, he made his way to the fire and removed the worn pot. The rice was well cooked and he pulled a spoon out of a compartment in his belt and dug in, careful not to touch the hot metal to his bare skin. He was a large man and the rice by itself was hardly satisfactory, but it was much better than having to go to bed without dinner.</p><p>Once finished he drank the last bit of purified water from his canteen and carefully removed Rudger's lab coat. Storm or no storm he needed to replenish his water supply. With his cooking pot in hand he forced open the outer door against the raging wind. A sizable river had formed in a crack on some old concrete. It was there that he washed his cooking pot and filled two large plastic jugs with the flowing water. With some effort he carried everything inside his shelter, double-latching the outer door as a precaution. He closed the heavy inner door with a sigh. As the weather turned cold, these occasional forays into rainstorms were getting less and less enjoyable.</p><p>He placed his cooking pot on a nail to dry and grabbed a towel. Once he had finished scrubbing his hair he added more wood to his fire and huddled close to dry off. The warmth of the fire seeped into his weary body, leading him to lie down in the dirt next to the fire. This was a far cry from the floor of their combined offices, where the good doctor, Rudger and himself would sometimes sleep in shifts while overseeing Momentum. Thunder rumbled overhead as he tried to remember the feeling of being clean and dry and loved. He quickly fell asleep.</p><p>His dreams were troubled. Often he would notice a black bird on the furthermost edges of whatever mashup of stimulus his brain produced during his short periods of rest. Other times the bird would feature prominently, flying out and attacking him. He was never afraid of the bird, but as he had never before had any particular affinity for birds the presence of this particular  animal troubled him. After the first few months of near-constant non-physical sightings of this bird he had become convinced it had something to do with Zero Reverse. He had never been raised nor inclined to be particularly religious but the bird seemed symbolic. As for the event itself, he had managed to flee the building before the event happened. He had given his word to Rutger to gather the Signers and return them to the site but never could he have imagined his beloved older brother would destroy their work and legacy so completely. When he considered the events of that day he quickly realized he could only recall stepping out into the sunshine obscured by swirling dust, waking up after the event had taken place, and visions of the black bird in between. The bird seemed by no means a benevolent force, but at times he wondered if he may have been... protected, in some way.</p><p>The days continued to turn cold and soon snow was a prominent feature of the surrounding landscape. Due to the lack of proper winter attire, he was driven to stay inside his small shelter more often than not. During these long months he allowed himself to be consumed by a selfish project. Not long after Zero Reverse, when survivors were still reeling from the disaster, he had stolen a damaged motorbike and stashed it in his shelter. Now with little else to do, he spent his time servicing the machine with parts and tools he had collected. A lifelong fascination with mechanics had led him to deconstruct a fair number of transports and with Rutger's help they had managed to restore several bikes for personal use and a modest profit. Hard work kept him warm and occupied, and the damage to the bike was severe enough to require intensive reconstruction.</p><p>From the moment he had gazed at his older brother down the barrel of a gun, he had been formulating a plan for escape. The damage done to the area around the former MIDS labs was extensive but by no means insurmountable. He had promised Rutger that he would gather the Signers and return. To do that, he needed to get to the city. West Domino had been cut off by the sound and the best way to cross would be with a bridge, and so a bridge he would build. But that was a project that would have to wait until spring.</p><p>As snow piled up against the outer doors of his shelter, he executed carefully drawn plans to affix wings to his painstakingly repaired motorcycle. Since the events of Zero Reverse, the remaining government of East and Central Domino had begun building a police presence in the ruined sections of West Domino. These police forces had instituted martial law wherein order was restored through force. Of course, these were tales told by traveling men around the communal fires in BAD as the police force had not yet made their presence widely known to the desolate area around the destroyed Momentum core. He knew it was only a matter of time. Should the burgeoning police presence impede his construction, he would simply use the bridge as a ramp and fly over the sound instead. It was pointless to search among the heads of the desolate. In order to locate the Signers, he would have to rise above the devastation and to do that he would need to find higher ground standing atop the undamaged sections of Domino.</p><p>Food had grown scarce. While he was still able to keep a good supply of rice (for relief efforts had started to filter into BAD), it was not enough to keep up the hard physical labor he forced himself into day after day. After he worked himself into exhaustion he would curl up near his fire to indulge in his greatest vice: thinking. On this night he found himself staring at the cards the good doctor had frantically pressed into his hands. These cards, the controllers for Momentum. He had never gotten the chance to question the good doctor as to why he chose to make the keys into trading cards from that obscenely popular game.</p><p>Of course he understood why the controllers had come into his possession. In his hands, cards were nothing short of weapons. They had been that way ever since he'd first gotten his hands on his brother's deck in his fourth year. He was somehow able to make all his attacks real, the damage inflicted on the opposing player himself as well as his life points. After extensive testing with a variety of dueling methods all with the same result, he and his brother concluded it would be best for him to refrain from casual dueling. The good doctor had already seen Rudger's plans and rather then store the controllers with his infant son, whom he had sent away to an old friend, the good doctor made a point to pass on the controllers to the only person who could defend them. In his heart he knew that if he were to encounter Rudger, he would use the controllers against his older brother.</p><p>The weather was slow to change. Their experiments with Momentum the year before had caused terrible storms across Domino and the effects were persistent, manifesting in severe weather that was colder and harsher then he could ever remember. Of course the lack of proper amenities likely contributed to and skewed his perceptions. One cold spring morning he finally finished his project and he only sat back with tired pride. He'd made it through the winter and he was going to escape from the wretched remains of the MIDS compound and seek out the Signers. His next project was to survey the land and gather materials. These mundane tasks were easy and time-consuming, allowing him to move through the burgeoning population with relative ease.</p><p>With the warmer weather came the completion of the major bridges connecting the BAD area to the rest of West Domino, giving him the opportunity to haul in larger pieces of scrap wood and iron. He was even able to obtain some cement from the basement of a former construction site that had been torn apart but not properly looted. During the month or so he worked gathering supplies, he also began keeping a small garden. He had never before really ever cared for a plant but he had decided in the interest of survival that dropping a seed into a hole and keeping it watered couldn't be that hard. He soon built a timed watering system that would keep his plants wet while he threw all his time into building the bridge. During the time he wasn't gathering materials, he stood on the shoreline and surveyed the landscape. He used crude methods to estimate the distance and he sketched a design by firelight which he pinned up in his work area alongside a wall covered with his calculations. Nearly two months later when he was finally satisfied with his plans, he drove the first anchor beam.</p><p>As the days stretched into weeks and his bridge began to take shape, he noticed the men that would gather to watch. When he was walking by them with materials he would hear them whisper. They thought he was a fool, no one could build a bridge all the way between West and East Domino. He ignored them. No matter what they thought or said, he had a promise to keep. He kept working day after day no matter what the weather. He couldn't afford the luxury of breaks, he had to cross before winter set in. He didn't even notice when those first few men broke away from the curious and doubtful watchers, didn't notice as they began to haul in more scrap supplies. Suddenly he found himself with a small army of men ready to help him achieve his dream. He smiled and directed them to tasks, but never bothered to ask what drove them. They had their reasons and he had his. The growing police forces had also began taking interest in his work. One or two uniformed men would stand in the shadows of nearby buildings, watching and talking in code on his radio. He ignored the police presence and continued working. However, some of the men who had been helping were not so steadfast in their resolve and one by one they drifted away just as quietly as they had come. Soon he had returned to working by himself.</p><p>The bridge had just entered the major arc phase when it happened. As he was gathering more supplies, the police cornered him. Unwilling to be deterred from his goals, he returned their patronage with civil disobedience. He leapt onto his bike and they gave chase. He cursed his situation. He had been working so hard on the bridge he had neglected to properly store supplies on board his bike for this moment. The only item he carried was the one thing most precious to him in this world. Safely nestled in the rear compartment of his bike was the jar containing Rudger's arm. During the long, cold nights sleeping on a worn blanket next to a dying fire, he had prayed to the Gods that took Rudger from him. It seemed his prayers had fallen on deaf ears as the police forces closed around him. He took a sharp turn and then another as time seemed to slow down. As he approached his bridge, the rest of the world faded away. There was only the bridge and the calm blue ocean beyond. He unfolded the wings. He pushed the engine to its limit, heard the cracking of boards under the tires and then... nothing at all. He was completely airborne. As he approached the sun, he lifted his hand and reached out toward it.</p><p>"Rudger..."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was written a long time ago. I hope you enjoyed it for what it is.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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